It is important to spend a lot of time doing longeing exercises before riding your horse. Those who invest this extra time in longeing in the first few months of training will be rewarded throughout the horse’s education. Like a rough diamond that first needs to be polished, the young horse first needs to be “suppled up” on the longe. In this time the horse can build up its fitness, develop its muscles and find balance in all gaits.
Slow motion in walk, trot and canter
On both sides of its body, the horse is asked to bend in laterally, to step under the point of weight and to move forward down. You will have made a big step forward in the education of the horse when the young horse has learned these three elements on the longe.
Cavesson
The young horse is longed using the cavesson and a single line. The horse should not be longed using the bit, because this can cause the horse to tilt its head. Also, the bit gives too many signals in the horse’s mouth.
While longeing the horse should learn the following exercises:
• Basic transitions such as walk-trot, trot-canter
• Speeding up and slowing down within a gait
• Stop
• Transitions such as stop-trot, canter-walk
• Changing the lead through the circle (by making a S over the middle)
Longe frequently with the saddle. When the horse has mastered all these exercises and gained better fitness and muscles, the riding training can then begin.
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